


She's My Beginning And My End

by SecondFromTheRight



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gendry's POV, Reunion Fic, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 22:40:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12045780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondFromTheRight/pseuds/SecondFromTheRight
Summary: But looking at her now, he knew it had always been simple, much simpler – because it started when he’d watched her fight back against Hot Pie and Lommy, gaining his attention, finding himself wanting to talk to her, when he didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially not then when the only thing that he’d had for most of his life that could pass for family had sold him, given him up and left him alone and without a future. But he’d wanted to talk to her, stand with her, indulge her, make sure she was okay. But it had really started when she’d told him who she was.





	She's My Beginning And My End

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a number of comments about requests and wants for reunion fics on my Arya Mentions collection and I thought it was time I tried something.
> 
> I'm a dialogue fan, that's obvious from my drabble collection, but I haven't done any POVs of ASOIAF characters before and it was the thing I didn't think I'd be able to do, so I wanted to practice.

Sometimes he had trouble trying to determine when it had started for him, his life, who he was supposed to be. When Tobho Mott sold him to the Night’s Watch? When Ned Stark walked into the forge looking for him? When Jon Arryn had done the same thing? When his mother had died? Maybe it was as simple as when Robert Baratheon had chosen his mother for his night’s pleasure. But looking at her now, he knew it had always been simple, much simpler – because it started when he’d watched her fight back against Hot Pie and Lommy, gaining his attention, finding himself wanting to talk to her, when he didn’t want to talk to anyone, especially not then when the only thing that he’d had for most of his life that could pass for family had sold him, given him up and left him alone and without a future. But he’d wanted to talk to her, stand with her, indulge her, make sure she was okay. But it had really started when she’d told him who she was. When so easily she gave him complete trust and belief like nobody ever had, like not for a second did she doubt her trust in him, to tell him a secret that so many could and would betray for, that was so important it could have changed the war of Kings. His future changed with her, his purpose changed with her; because of her. He could more with her; he could be something – someone – with her.

He’d followed her, as easily as she had chosen to confide in him, he followed her. They partnered together, becoming everything to each other and not for a second resenting it, never resenting their choice of each other. Until the Brotherhood. When suddenly there were grown ups infiltrating their partnership, their isolated world, reminding them – reminding him – who she was, and who he wasn’t, and taking his future away again. Because he was nobody. He wouldn’t be anything to a wolf princess, he certainly couldn’t be something to a wolf princess. He had no right, no honour and no claim to that future. So he clung desperately for any future he still could, and maybe, just maybe it was one that allowed him to one day glimmer at the lost dream. He could grow up, be useful to the war – to the right side of the war, to her side of the war – he could maybe even become a proxy Knight. It wasn’t the dream, but maybe it was the closest version of reality there could be, the closest he could get to it. A future that still allowed him to maybe one day be something to that girl who’d meant everything. But he had to break both their hearts to do it. Had to go against everything he believed because Arya standing there telling him he could her family, handing him the opportunity he wanted – to deny her went against everything he’d come to be, and believe. Because he followed her, believed in her, felt right by her side. To tell himself that she was wrong, that she had to be wrong, felt unnatural, an offence. All he’d wanted to do was go with her, but he couldn’t be left and forgotten again. He’d survived Tobho Mott’s rejection because he’d found Arya instead, because some kind of sense had been made of why he was no longer in King’s Landing – because he was supposed to find this girl instead. But to be left by her – there would be nothing left of him. So he left her instead, believing – forcing himself to believe the others around him, the men who knew the world better, a highborn world he could never know - forced himself believe that they were right. That her heart was too innocent, and that no matter the purpose and home they’d found together, it could never be enough against the world they lived in.

She’d been it. The friendship he’d found in her had been the real start of him, of his possible future. But he’d lost it. First by his own choice, and then by the Brotherhood, Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon. Sometimes he’d blame them more, growing more and more resentful of what they had taken from him – his physical proximity to a girl, but it had taken everything from him. His present and his future. Blaming them felt easier, because what if he’d changed his mind about staying with the Brotherhood after all? What if he’d realised they couldn’t be trusted? What if Arya had tried again to convince him and he’d listened? When it came down to it, would he have really been able to walk away from her? Or stand still as she walked away from him? He hadn’t up until then. Not with the Night’s Watch recruits, not at Harrenhal, not with the Brotherhood. He had followed her every time. He’d never truly gotten to see if he was able to stop following her. He hated them all for that.

Sometimes he’d wondered when it started again, when he’d gotten that second period of life, when his future was redirected. When the first Baratheon family he’d met had gripped his chin harshly, looking at him in distain, for both sides of his parentage? When Melisandre took him, laid him down and took a part of him he’d angrily been missing since? When Davos came to see him, talked to him through the bars or saved him, letting him go? The years he’d spent back in the Street of Steel, hiding and becoming angrier and angrier, desperately seeking a reason that was noble, that could give him identity and reason again – his father had been killed, murdered. Maybe he was supposed to be someone, King’s blood ran through him. Wasn’t that worth something? Something he could avenge? When Ser Davos found him again, introduced him to the favoured sibling of her? Who looked like her? Her King brother? A mission North with a new group of brothers in arms, a purpose he’d always sought, an apology, a beg of forgiveness, a trust re-earned for a lost girl who once looked at like he could be someone to her. A mission he’d clung to like he had the possibility of the Brotherhood. He needed something, and he didn’t know how else to find it. He couldn’t find it by himself, or in King’s Landing, or on a boat in the middle of nowhere. But looking at her now – her hair longer and tidier, the same scowl on her face that automatically made him want to grin and push at her, prodding the annoyance until she shoved him still – this was where it started again, this was the second chance. Here, with her. Again with her, but in her home now, that she’d tried so hard to get to, that he’d tried so hard to get her to. Everything in between last seeing her dropped away. All the things he’d focused on so much in those years, pushing for to mean something, to create his reason for existing, the mark he could leave: Baratheon, Smith, Solider, Brother. No matter how much he swung that warhammer, no matter how much he perfected his trade, no matter how brave he tried to be, no matter the loyalty he pushed for, none of meant what standing here with her meant. He’d thought they had just survived together that time, but the time he’d spent without her when he had easily survived with wanted shelter and food, showed the difference. They had been surviving a war, but they’d been living together. It was so simple, in the end. He was just Gendry. He was just Gendry with the only person who’d ever wanted him to be just Gendry.

“M’lady.” He greeted her, the tension dissolving at the familiarity, the rightness of that word. The secret and loaded meaning it had that only she could understand. Their history in one word.

“Are you staying?” She asked, spoken like routine, like he wasn’t anything different to her.

“If your family will allow.” He told her, because it was the truth and because he thought it might aggravate her, the implication she wouldn’t be the one deciding everything. It wasn’t her Lady Mother and King in the North brother Robb, but it was a Lady Stark of Winterfell and a King in the North brother still. This was the second chance, where he was going to allow himself to trust that she did know what they could have in this world. He'd follow her lead, again, happily.

“Are you still stupid?” She questioned, her tone changing but still distant.

“Are you still a pain in my arse?” he countered. “You’re still small, M’Lady.” He said, tacking on the title greeting at the end as some kind of protection.

She shoved him, her hand against his chest, her scowl deep again. He felt such relief that he could still affect her, her coming undone in front of him, going from a disciplined, emotionless warrior to the vibrant girl he knew. That’s all that mattered. She was still Arya, and he could still affect her as Gendry. Everything else they could rebuild. He wrapped his hand around her wrist before she could pull back.

**Author's Note:**

> A special thank you to someone who always leaves me really nice, encouraging comments and today directed me towards a Joe Dempsie interview that I hadn't read and that I have tried to incorporate into this, in what Arya and her trust of him meant for Gendry.


End file.
